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Beginners Guide to the Evoker
flyingchong
Member Posts: 15
Welcome Hellgate players, to my first game guide!
Hellgate: Londen is a great game. But it’s very vague for new players. So I did a lot of playing, testing and searching around the net in order to get an idea of how things work. While doing so I thought, why not just compile all the information which I obtain so that other can benefit from it as well. But I must admit it isn’t completely finished yet. I still haven’t seen all spells, as I didn’t get into the beta and have a busy life at the moment. None the less, I tried my best and plan on keeping it updated. Anyway, here it is!
This Guide Contains: v1.1
Overview of the Evoker
Elements
Focus Drives
- Weapon Rating Number
- Power
- Elemental Attack Strength
- Relic Slots
- Types of Focus Drives
- Magical Properties and Spells
Attribute Points
Skills
Overview of the Evoker:
Evokers are the primary caster class of Hellgate: London. By the means of their focus drives they are able to tap into the powers of the nether, and manipulate these to conjure devastating spells. Granting them full skill access to all the ingame elements, which makes the evoker a versatile class, able to specialize in different types of combat. With that in mind we will continue on to the rest of this guide.
Elements:
Before we go further into the evoker it might be useful to know what kind of elements the game contains, and their corresponding status effects. These effects may apply when any of the elements causes a target to lose life while having the corresponding attack strength. Note that I said lose life, as HG:L contains energy shields that absorb damage and thus prevent status effects from applying as long as they hold. There are ways around this, more on that later. Anyway, here is the list of elements:
Physical: May stun the target, preventing it from taking any actions for a short amount of time.
Fire: May cause the target to become ignited, causing it to lose 5% of its maximum health per second.
Electrical: May cause the target to become shocked, preventing it from using any skills.
Spectral: May inflict phase which causes the target to take 50% more damage and decrease its damage output by 50%
Toxic: May poison the target, preventing it from gaining health. It may also slow move and/or attack speed and cause a minor health degeneration.
Focus Drives:
Focus drives are the gauntlet like weapons that the evoker requires to wear in order to cast his spells. They are referred to as weapons because they can also fire bolts of energy, much like a pistol. But more important, they directly determine how effective the evokers spells are. Evokers also have a skill called Dual Focus, which makes it possible for them to wear two focus drives at the same time.
Key Features:
Focus Drives have three key features: Power, Elemental Strength, Relic Slots. The power and elemental strength can be viewed by pressing the right mouse button on a focus. This will cause the weapon menu to pop-up, which contains all its stats. Most are pretty self explanatory, but some may need additional clarification. Speaking of which, lets first clear up the…
Weapon Rating Number: This refers to the number you see when holding your mouse over a focus, also seen in the upper right corner when viewing the weapon menu. It has its corresponding elemental symbol on the background that refers to the type of damage it deals*. This is often confused for the focus weapon’s power, but in fact it is supposed to give an indication of the overall rating of the focus. Taking in account all stats, including those given by any inserted Relics.
*(so far I have only seen spectral, but I don’t have proof that others don’t exist)
Power: Determines two things; the amount of damage spells do, and the focus weapon fire damage. Each spell has it’s own damage factor, which is multiplied by your power factor for the final amount of damage. Note that currently the exact damage of a spell cant been viewed.
When dual wielding, the power used for spell damage isn’t a simple sum of the two focus drives. If the information I have read is correct, each focus gives off 60% of their respective power. For example, when wielding one with power 60 and a second one with power 50 the effective spell power will become: (60 x 0.6) + (50 x 0.6) = 66.
What most people might not realize at first is that equipping a second focus can lead to a decrease in the final power factor. By solving the formula it becomes clear that the secondary focus must have at least 2/3 of the power of the primary one in order to not negatively influence the total power outcome. Above 2/3 will always increase the total power. It is, of course, unlikely for the difference between the two focus drives to become so big.
Elemental Strength: Determines the chance that any elemental damage triggers their corresponding status effect. I am pretty sure that both the amount of damage and the base trigger chance of the source are also factored in the final proc chance. (Proc means the triggering of the status effect)
Besides the chance to proc, also the duration of the status effect seems to be influenced by the elemental strength. I don’t know if the final elemental strength is calculated the same way as power when dual wielding.
Relic Slots: Focus drives may contain up to 2 relic slots, except for prism’s which have 3 or 4. Relics are items that can be found and inserted into weapons in order to upgrade them. They have their own special stats; like increased damage, elemental strength, special spell triggers on a kill and so on. When inserted into a weapon it takes on the relics effects. How these influence spells will be listed below, under magical properties. Note that in order to insert a relic, the items it goes into must be of a certain level. This level range is displayed among the relics stats.
Types of Focus Drives:
There are several types of focus drives, which have inherent special properties:
Axis: Decreases power cost of spells.
Core: Decreases recharge times of spells.
Lens: Increased critical hit chance.
Locus: Enhanced damage.
Prism: Increased number of Relic slots, always 3 or 4, instead of up to 2.
Radiant: Increased Elemental Strength.
Magical Properties and spells:
Items that have green, blue, orange or gold names are magically enhanced. These contain special modifiers which boost the wearer in some way. With focus drives most of these also apply to the evokers spells. It’s not always that clear what does and what doesn’t apply. So, the next section will sum up several magical attributes that effect spells.
+X% of any damage type: for example, +10% fire damage. Important to know is that this doesn’t only apply to fire spells. Spectral Lash (which does spectral damage) also gains 10% extra damage, but that will be fire damage. So as a result spectral lash now does spectral and fire damage, and can trigger both phase and ignite. Although the ignite chance will be significantly smaller due to the small part being fire damage. This even counts for physical damage.
Adds X to [Status Effect] Attack Strength: This increases the chance an elemental attack will trigger its status effect. For more information see the elemental table above.
Shield Penetration: This also applies to your spells. Some percentage will negate the shield and directly result in life los. Penetrating damage can apply a status effect. It’s highly recommended to get a total of 100%, which will cause you to completely negate shields.
Others that also apply to spells:
Shield Overload.
X% Chance to cause a spell on kill/hit.
Critical Damage Bonus: +X%. (Don’t know if all damage spells can crit)
Critical Multiplier +X%.
A note worthy exception is:
+X% Increased Range does NOT apply to spells. I have tested this and it didn’t have any effect on spell range.
Attribute Points
The evoker focused on Stamina and Will:
Will: Will is of course important for power pool and power regeneration. Allowing for more spells to be cast. Focus drives and Relics also require Will to be equipped. So keep in mind that in mind. Especially when making a more Stamina based evoker.
Stamina: More Stamina means more hit points, which is always good. It’s also required for equipping armors.
Strength: Some players also spend some points in Strength, because this is required in order to equip armors with higher defense ratings. Which might be desired when you use close range spells. But this is very build dependent.
Accuracy: Evokers don’t need this. Don’t put points in this.
Skills
The evokers skills can be split up in several groups; Curses, Drains, Miscellaneous, Fire, Spectral, Lightning, Bone and Toxic skills. Spells that deal damage have their own factor which is multiplied with the powers from the equipped focus drives. So spell damage is not related with skill level.
I chose not to use a spell rating system, because I believe that most spell are to situational and build dependent. Instead I’ll first give a description of each spell, mostly covering how it functions. This is followed by some comments about how the spell could be used, and what to keep in mind while doing so. I hope this will make people see how they can combine spells in order to design their own builds. Before you start reading these you might want to view the skill tree, or use the talent calculator to help you play around with skill points as you design your evoker.
Evoker Talent Calculator
Curses:
Brom’s Curse (lvl 5): This curse heals anyone that damages the afflicted creatures. The amount healed is equal to the given percentage of the attackers max life. It has a 10 meter radius and a casting time of 1 second, during which you can’t move. The life gain effect can only trigger once every 2 seconds or so, per target. Additional points in this skill increases the health percentage gained, maximum number of targets and duration.
This skill is a good way to keep up your health, and works great in parties as well. When combined with other defensive spell like Venom Armor and Arcane shield it can significantly increase your survivability. Therefore most evokers consider it a must have skill. It doesn’t require to be maxed, though. 3 or 4 points should be enough. The first few points really help to make it more durable, to last until the end of the fight, as well as increasing the percentage life gained. But after 4 points it’s duration increase shouldn’t matter that much and the small percentage bonus isn’t worth the points.
It also works well together with Drain Power, which deals really small amounts of damage but enough to trigger Brom’s Curse.
Afterlife (lvl 25): This skill heals the evoker for a certain amount of life per corps in a 10 meter radius. The life gained scales with character level. It has a 2 second casting time, during which you can’t move. Initially it has a 20 second cooldown, which decreases by additional skill points.
Can be useful in between battles, for health recovery. A 2 second casting time is rather long for it to be an effective heal spell during combat. Brom’s Curse is better way to fulfill this function, as you can continue to be offensive while healing yourself. I don’t recommend putting points in this skill, instead get a focus with + to afterlife. Set this as one of your additional weapon sets (F2 or so), and swap it out when you need to heal. It isn’t worth the points.
Spectral Curse (lvl 30): This curse causes all afflicted creatures to explode with spectral damage on death. A sort of automatic corps explosion. It has a 10 meter radius and a casting time of 1 second, during which you can’t move. Additional points increase the maximum number of targets that can be afflicted and it’s duration.
Initially this has a very short duration of only 3 seconds, coupled with the short range in which it takes effects makes it tricky to use. Although the duration can be increased with additional skill points. This skill has the potential to cause a chain effect. As in killing one triggers an explosion that in turn kills another and so on. In theory this could work great for an evoker that focuses around close combat. With spells like Firestorm and Venom Armor. It should be noted that it overrides Brom’s Curse, which is disadvantage for such builds. Although Arcane Shield may be able to compensate for this.
Drain Spells:
Drain Power (lvl 5): With this skill the evoker channels a beam to each enemy in a narrow 20 meter cone. For each affected target the evoker gets the given percentile bonus to power regeneration. It also deals a minimal amount of damage. You can freely move while using this skill. Additional skill points will increase the percentile bonus to power regeneration.
This spell can be useful for power intensive builds. Since the bonus gained is percentile, the effect of this skill is greater if the evoker already has a higher base power regeneration. I this case it might be worth a few points. But I recommend to wait until later levels before you put additional points in this, so you can see how your power pool / power usage scales late game.
As has been said before, this triggers Brom’s Curse, which can lead to a very effective refill.
Drain Life (lvl 15): Works the same as Drain Power, but the cone in which it locks on to its targets seems to be narrower. For each affected target the evokers heals for a fixed amount of health per second, which scales with character level. The damage is better than that of Drain Power, but still not low. Additional skill points will increase the health gain per second.
This spell can be useful. It deals better damage than Drain Power, but less than the amount of life it drains. Just as Drain Power it can trigger Brom’s Curse. Combining those will result in a very nice and quick health regen. Can be useful in pvp, if health injectors are forbidden.
Elemental Drain (lvl 25): All I have heard about this is that its bugged and because of that ineffective, therefore I haven’t tested it yet. I will update this in the nearby future.
Miscellaneous:
Word of Fear (lvl 1): May cause enemies within a 10 meter radius to flee away from you. Additional skill points increase the chance that they will flee.
A defensive spell. Not fully reliable, but still a potential life saver. I don’t know how it scales at higher levels nor difficulties. Personally am not a fan of this type of skill, at least not when playing something like an evoker. So overall its hard for me to say if it’s worth it.
Dual Focus (lvl 5): The first skill point is required for the evoker to dual wield focus drives. Which is likely to result in increased spell power and elemental attack strength. In addition two focus drives allow for more item bonuses to skills and relic slots, increasing the strength of the evoker even further. Additional points decrease the will power feed.
A must have skill. At the very least 1 point should always be spend on Dual Focus. The evoker is an offensive class, and foci are the way to increase your damage output. It’s as simple as that.
Evokers naturally have high will, but endgame legendary foci require huge amounts as well. Always keep this in mind when designing your builds, and thus keep some points reserved. I recommend spreading the investments in this skill over a large amount of levels. See how your Will scales with your gear as you progress. This is especially important for evokers that focus more on stamina due to their build.
Arcane Shield (lvl 10): Instantly recharges and boosts the evokers shield above its maximum. The maximum shield bonus scales with character level. You must stand still in order to maintain the shield bonus. It has a 10 second cooldown. Additional skill points increase the maximum shield bonus.
At least 1 point should be put into this, as it instantly recovers your shields to 100%. Even if you move directly after casting it, only the maximum shields bonus will be lost. Remember that shields are important because they protect you from status effects. Can also be used to buy time for healing abilities to kick in, or protect you while casting spells that might require you to endanger yourself. Examples of such are Tempest (takes some time to cast), Firestorm (due to the short range) or Concentrate Damage (also requires you to stay stationary).
Summon Ember (lvl 15): Summons a fire elemental that fights for the evoker. Takes 1 second to summon, and you can’t move for 2 seconds afterwards. Maintaining an elemental also lowers your maximum power. Additional skill points increases the elementals damage output.
It’s rather weak and suicidal, although I have only seen it at skill level 1. Maybe its useful at higher levels. Still, in my opinion, if you want to summon stuff go play the summoner, if you want to blast stuff play the evoker. As you are reading this guide I guess you are interested in blasting stuff so never mind this thing.
Blink (lvl 20): Instantly teleports the evoker 20 meters in a straight line. Cant pass through all obstacles . Has an initial cooldown of 20 seconds. Additional skill points decrease the cooldown.
Recommend either one point in this or 8 to 10, depending on your goal and build. When surrounded you can teleport out of harms way, saving your live in the process. In PvP the enhanced mobility can be a great advantage, if this fits your play style put in 8 to 10 points.
The way blink paths is rather shady. Some obstacles seem to block it, others don’t. One thing is sure, you cant pass through walls. If the path is blocked it wont cost any power nor will it trigger the cooldown.
Concentrate Damage (lvl 20): When activated this skill enhances damage output at the cost of mobility. Increasing all spell damage by a given percentage, but requiring the evoker to remain stationary in order to maintain. It has a 10 second cooldown. Additional skill points increase the percentile damage bonus.
Sacrificing mobility is a very high cost, especially in solo play and PvP. On the other hand this skill can be immensely powerful. It’s best used as an opener. Combine this with skills as Spectral Lash and Tempest and it will wrack havoc among enemies. The trick, when combining this with tempest, is that the damage bonus is applied when you cast the spell, you don’t have to maintain Concentrate Damage afterwards. Then use the long range of Spectral Lash to pull enemies towards you, through the tempest. In addition you can throw down a Lightning Field or a Swarm. This should devastate most mobs.
Another use is in party play, were you pretty much become an artillery cannon while your allies keep mobs busy.
Fire:
Firestorm (lvl 1): This spell creates a barrage of small fire blasts, which takes shape in a 8 meter cone. Additional skill points significantly increase the ignite chance.
This is probably the most effective boss killer, especially with a few additional points. The damage is impressive, coupled with a high ignite chance makes this spell literally burn through most health bars in a matter of seconds. The biggest concerns are the limited range and power cost. Speaking of which, the power cost is misleading. The given cost is per spark, not per cast. Still it’s a great skill. If you want to build around it keep in mind that you will need to go up close and personal. I recommend using this with skills like Brom’s Curse, Venom Armor and maybe even Arcane Shield.
Flameshards (lvl 15): This spell launches a given number of shards that spread out in a cone shape. The angle between the shards seems to be somewhat random. The shards embed into anything they hit, and explode soon after. It has a 20 meter range and no cooldown. Additional skill points increase the number of shards per casting.
The damage and power cost are good, but personally I don’t find this spell effective. Unless you have a horde of enemies in front of you most shards wont damage anything. Another problem is that it doesn’t guaranty to launch a shard where you aim, making it even less reliable. Of course this will get better with additional skill points, as there will be more shards. It is possible for several shards to hit the same target, but this requires the target to be big and close by. For such a situation you already have Firestorm, which has a better ignite chance as well. I must admit I haven’t seen this at high skill level.
Hellfire (lvl 30): Soon to be added.
Lightning:
Lightning Field (lvl 10): This spell creates a lightning orb that travels in an arc, much like a grenade. It generates an electric field on impact, which deals damage to each foe that comes in contact with it. It has a 30 meter range and lasts for about 5 seconds. Additional skill point increase the size of the electric field.
This skill definitely has its uses. Great at taking out small pesky enemies without spending a lot of power. Great against slow enemies as well. It functions good as backup damage, while casting other spells, as the damage is mediocre by itself. Swarm functions mostly the same, but has better damage. You might think; why not use both of them. Well, the spells don’t stack when they effecting the same area. Neither does lightning field with itself. So keep that in mind.
Tempest (lvl 20): This spell conjures a large dark cloud that fires bolts of lightning at enemies within range. It has a 3 second casting time and lasts for 20 seconds. There are several bolts, each with an individual cooldown. Additional skill points increase the rate at which the cloud fires its bolts.
Hard to use, but extremely damaging when used correctly. This skills damage output does increase with additional skill points! Simply because it will fire more frequent. When using this skill you need to do so tactical, plan ahead. Set up the cloud and pull in some enemies. Then try to keep them within the clouds firing range. By stuns or maybe kite them around with a high level Blink. See the comment of Concentrate Damage for another tactic with this skill.
One more thing; sometimes it doesn’t form when the sealing of the area is too low, which of course is really annoying. Can’t be helped, though.
Arc Legion (lvl 30): This spell generates several lightning beams that lock-on to enemies within range. It takes several seconds for all the beams to generate, so the damage has a short build up time. They can also split up and lock-on to several targets, spreading the damage among them. It has an initial 11 meter range. Additional skill point increase the range.
Arc Legion does great damage, especially when all beams are focused on a single target. In that case it even out damages spectral lash. Another great thing is that it seems to spam status effects. By equipping foci with +X% elemental Damage and a lot of the corresponding status effect strength, it can phase/ignite/poison/stun/shock almost everything. You may not want to put more then 1 point into this. Increasing the spells range also increases the chance that the beams will spread out. Which increases the power drain but not the total damage output. Still it can be useful for spreading out status effects. Just keep this in mind when you think about how you want to apply this spell.
Spectral:
Spectral Bolt (lvl 1): Fires a purple bolt that splits up into several after a short time. It has a range of 28 meters and 1,5 second cooldown. Additional skill points increase the phase attack strength.
It’s very hard to use effectively. The damage of one bolt isn’t that impressive. It needs to be timed right so that the bolt hits the target directly after it splits up. This significantly increases the damage and phase chance. This is also has the best phase strength of all evoker spells.
Spectral Lash (lvl 10): Shoots out a spectral ray that locks on to a single target. It deals damage as long as its locked on. It has an initial range of 18 meters. Additional skill points increase the range.
This skill is the evokers sniper skill. The range can get up to 45 meters. When you combine this with Concentrate Damage you can take out enemies before they even come near to you. The biggest disadvantages are its high power cost and that it only hits one target. The spectral lash mastery upgrades it a little by adding a small explosion effect when you kill the target.
Spectral Lash Mastery (lvl 25): A passive skill that enhances the Spectral Lash skill. This causes targets to explode when they are killed by the spectral lash spell. In addition, it increases the phase attack strength of Lash. Additional skill points increase the phase attack strength bonus.
The explosion radius is quite small and weak, which limits its usefulness. But it’s phase chance is decent, especially with some additional points. It depends on how important it is for you that some enemies phase.
Demonspine (lvl 5): This spell fires a fast moving white missile in a 20 meter straight line. It penetrates any enemy it hits and has a good chance to stun. With only a 1 second cooldown. Additional skill points increase the chance to stun significantly.
With some additional skill points and stun attack strength you can stun lock allot of creatures out there. The actual hit radius of the spine is also larger than it might indicate. Often it will hit enemies even if it only skims them. Best used by pulling some enemies, then walk backwards as your fire away. They often line up while chasing you. Personally I find this a great skill, one of my favorites.
Bone Shards (lvl 15): Instantly creates a nova of bone shards. Damaging and often stunning enemies within a 10 meter radius. The cooldown is 8 seconds. Additional skill points increase the stun attack strength.
The damage is really low. This is skill revolves around its AoE stun effect. It can buy you some time to, much like Word of Fear. But due to the cooldown it can’t be used very frequently, which really limits its usefulness. Skill points are better spent elsewhere.
Skullsplitter (lvl 25): Soon to be added.
Toxic:
Venomous Spirit (lvl 5): The evoker summons a slow moving spirit that tracks down a single target. It has a good range of 35 meters and can fear the target as well. Additional skill points increase the chance and duration of the fear effect.
For those who are familiar with D2, it works like Bone Spirit, but slower. The damage it decent, and the fear effect makes it possible to kite enemies. Its tracking abilities are pretty good, but the lack of speed can be annoying. It also tends to get stuck in random objects, after which it disappears.
Venom Armor (lvl 15): Creates an Armor of poison and locust around the evoker, increasing armor by the given amount. This scales by character level. Whenever an enemy within 10 meters attacks the armor retaliates by sending a swarm of locust. These cause a damage over time debuff (DoT). The spell initially lasts for 20 seconds, and has a 60 second cooldown. Additional skill points increase the duration and armor bonus.
This is a good spell, The armor bonus is quite nice. When you invest 8 or more points into this it can be maintained constantly. A must have spell for evokers that have build around close range spells such as firestorm. The DoT effect from the locusts stacks with itself, meaning that enemies with a high attack speed will tend to kill themselves.
Swarm (lvl 25): Launches a sphere containing poisonous wasps. This spell functions the same as lightning field. The sphere travels in an arc, and releases a field of poison. It has a initial cooldown of 20 second. Additional skill points decrease the cooldown time.
This is a more powerful version of Lightning field. Therefore it also costs a lot more power, and has a larger cooldown. It can be used in combination with tempest. Create the tempest, pull the mobs and throw down the swarm at your location. Any enemies that make it to you can be finished off with Firestorm. Don’t forget that this doesn’t stack with Lightning field.
Comments
Nice. I was considering rolling an Evoker for Normal Mode Elite, just for something a bit different from the MM style. Appreciate the guide.
Thanks for the well written guide. However, there are a few mistakes. Since I'm a lightning evoker, I can only comment on lightning spells, so you may wish to check on the other elements. But you forgot to update the lightning skills for the stonehedge patch, which changes these skill descriptions. First, tempest now takes about 1 second to cast, and lasts for roughly 14 seconds, and has a 7 second cooldown. So you should be able to get two clouds going at once. Each additional point increases the lightning strke frequency of the cloud. Second, arcanite legion points now increases the lightning elemental effect, rather then increasing the range of the spell, which is now set at 18m. Finally, broms curse has significantly changed in that it now uses set numbers rather then percentages, which drastically reduces the effect of the curse. Each additional point increases the number of creatures affected and the duration.
As I said, those are the only ones I can comment on since that's the build I play, but it appears to me that you haven't adjusted for the stonehedge patch. There may be other skill descriptions in your guide that are incorrect. The following website has a skill tree builder which is updated, and which you may wish to reference.
http://hellgate.ingame.de/charplanner/evoker/
As an off note, here are some comments from a lvl 49 elite evoker:
In the end game, if you're solo, the mobs will hit you with so much damage that group based spells that used to work fine no longer work in the end game. For example, a tempest/venom armor/lightning build with arcanite legion and broms curse will work fine for the majority of elite, but will become meaningless at the end game because mobs do so much damage that if you're swarmed all of those dots and aoes won't do enough damage to negate the damage the mobs do to you. For end game I highly recommend very strong damage spells. Kill the mobs BEFORE they get to you, otherwise you will die a lot and spend a lot of time with the experience reducing debuff. In addition, concentrate damage has its place, but is often of little use in upper level elite because standing still is a sure way to die. It's nice to say cast conc damage and get a tempest off, but the reality is that the tempest has such short duration that it will probably be gone by the time you train mobs to it. If you get close enough to the mobs to have a conc damage tempest, odds are they will swarm you and kill you before the tempest has gotten many hits on them.
Also, it is important to focus on synergies. For example, putting 10 points into firestorm without buffing ignite with the other fire skills makes firestorm relatively worthless. The same applies to almost any other school of magic. When you choose an elemental damage method, be sure to max out the other synergistic skills that buff the elemental effect for that type of damage.
I hope this information helps the OP and other aspiring evokers.